Lying in the Pasture
by thehistorygeek
Summary: Lillian has had a fight with Cam, and it's up to Laney to patch things up between the two. Birthday present for lollipopdiego.


**Happy Birthday to lollipopdiego! This story is for her. :D**

**I'm actually pretty proud of this story. ^.^ I really like it. **

**Happy Birthday, my friend, Diego! :)**

**Also, I've never played "Tale of Two Towns", so I apologize in advance if anything in this story is wrong. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or any of its characters. **

Lying in the Pasture

"Lillian lay in her farm pasture staring up at the wide sky over top of her. A few fluffy white clouds danced across the sea of blue, but not many.

The farmer sighed deeply, and turned over on her stomach, not wanting to look at the clouds. They reminded her of him; the way they used to lie together in that very pasture, looking up at that very sky, watching the clouds turn into different things, like shapeshifters.

But everything seemed to remind Lillian of him these days. She couldn't even cook without an image of him popping into her mind.

|o|

Across town, in front of Howard's café, Cam sat behind his flower stall, his face buried in his hands. He had no enthusiasm for his flowers today… They were so much like her. She had loved flowers; the smell, the beauty… She was even named after a flower.

Oh, what had he done?

|o|

'Lilly?' Laney called, walking onto her friend's farm. 'Lilly? Are you here?'

Lately, Laney was finding it harder and harder to find Lillian. She [Lillian] often didn't stay in one spot, and kept hiding from everyone.

Laney checked all the usual spots someone would find a farmer: their house, their barn, their chicken coop, their field… But Lillian wasn't in any of these places. Finally, just as she was about to give up, the blonde spotted a bit of peach plaid skirt and mahogany fabric lying sprawled out on the grass in a pasture.

'Lillian?' Laney asked, surprised, clambering over the pasture fence and walking to where the brunette lay, face down in the grass. 'Lilly, what are you doing here?'

'Lying,' Lillian said plainly, her voice muffled by the grass blocking her mouth.

'Um… In a pasture?' Laney asked, raising an eyebrow. Why would someone be laying in a pasture? They were dirty and full of animals.

'Yes,' Lillian said, turning her face to look at Laney. 'What's wrong with that?'

Instead of answering, Laney sighed heavily and sat down beside Lillian, but not without making sure there wasn't any poo where she sat.

'Lilly… I'm worried about you.' She said, looking at the farmer with concern. 'You haven't done anything productive in days, and no one's seen you in town all week. You just run around and hide from everybody.'

'So?' Lillian asked, burying her face in the grass again. 'Am I not allowed to be alone?'

'Yes, of course you're allowed to be alone,' Laney said, interlocking her fingers and placing her hands in her lap. 'But… You're always so cheerful and happy, and you love to talk to people! What happened?'

'Nothing,' Lillian said immediately, her voice getting a little high-pitched the way it did when she lied. 'Nothing's wrong, nothing's happened.'

'Don't lie to me, Lilly,' Laney said. 'I'm your best friend; I know when you're lying. Is it Cam? Did something happen between you two?'

'No,' Lillian said quickly.

'It _is_ Cam, isn't it?' Laney asked, crossing her arms thoughtfully. 'He seems to be a little… _upset_ as well… I hardly see him around to café anymore… Oh, Lillian, what happened?'

'Nothing happened,' Lillian said softly, trying to make her voice incomprehensible.

'Just tell me!' Laney said.

'No,' Lillian said, shaking her head a bit.

'Come on!' Laney continued, uncrossing her arms and trying to make Lillian sit up. 'I want to help you! You need to tell me what happened!'

'I don't want your help!' Lillian protested, refusing to sit up. 'You don't need to know what happened!'

'Yes I do!' Laney said, shaking Lillian vigorously. 'You need help, Lilly! This can't go on! Your animals will _die_! When was the last time you fed them?'

There was a pause.

'I dunno,' Lillian mumbled after a few moments. 'Three… Four days ago?'

'Lillian!' Laney cried. 'You can't do that! You can't just abandon your farm!'

'Hmph,'

'Lillian, tell me what happened _right now_!'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'NO.'

'YES.'

'NO.'

'YES.'

'_No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no_!'

'_Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes_! _Please_?'

Lillian groaned and pounded her fists against the ground like a child.

'Fine!' she cried, turning over onto her back. 'If it's really _that_ important to you…'

'It is,' Laney assured triumphantly.

Lillian waited for a few seconds, and took a deep breath before starting.

'We… had a fight, Cam and I,' she confessed, sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest. 'A big fight.'

'What about?' Laney asked, suddenly sombre.

'He said I spent too much time on my farm, working, and that he hardly ever saw me.' Lillian said depressingly.

|o|

'Cam, dear?'

Cam slowly lifted his head from his head and looked at Rose, the mayor's wife, blinking in the bright sunlight.

'Are you all right, Cam?' Rose asked, looking at him with concern. 'I had just come over to buy some hydrangeas; the daffodils in the parlour have gone and died.'

'O-Oh,' Cam said, a little confused. Had he dozed off or something? 'Of course, Rose.'

He made busy with gathering a large bouquet of hydrangeas, and pretended that he was having trouble tying a bow around them when Rose repeated her question.

'Are you all right?'

'Yeah, of course,' Cam said quietly, handing Rose the bouquet of flowers.

The elderly woman took the hydrangeas, but instead of paying and leaving like Cam hoped she would, she lingered in front of the stall, looking at him with that creepy expression on her face that she got when she was acting all motherly and stubborn; it reminded Cam of a frustrated frog.

'You're lying,' she stated simply. 'I can tell. What happened? You can tell me anything!'

'It's nothing, nothing at all,' Cam said hastily, stroking the stem of a poppy he had lying nearby. 'Lillian and I just had a fight...'

'Oh, Cam!' Rose cried, throwing her hands up in the air and nearly dropping her flowers. The frustrated frog look had disappeared off her face, and Cam was thankful for at least that. 'That's not "nothing"! That's something! What was it about?'

'Nothing,' Cam said, a little annoyed now. People didn't need to know his personal business. 'It's fine.'

Oh, great; the frustrated frog was back. Humphing annoyingly, Rose put some money down in front of Cam and sauntered off.

|o|

'Maybe you should talk to him?' Laney suggested, looking at Lillian hopefully. She really hated it when people fought.

'No, Laney,' Lillian said, covering her eyes with her forearm. 'It'll just result in a fight, and I'm not in the mood for yelling.'

'Come on!' Laney pouted, getting on her hands and knees and leaning over Lillian's face. 'Please! Just do it! You'll never settle this thing if you don't!'

'No.' Lillian said stubbornly.

'Please! Do it for me!' Laney said, shaking Lillian violently. 'And yourself!'

'No!' Lillian said, taking her arm away from her eyes and giving Laney a push so that the blonde fell over onto her bottom.

'Why are you so _stubborn_!' Laney whined loudly, flailing her arms around as she struggled to get up.

'Because I am!' Lillian snapped, turning over on her side so that her back faced Laney.

Laney sighed and watched Lillian for a while. When her friend didn't move, Laney got up, sighing loudly, and slowly walked away.

|o|

Cam had closed early again. He was now lying in his room, burying his face into his pillow as if trying to see how deep it could go. He felt terrible. Absolutely, positively, undeniably rotten. His heart ached, his head ached, his entire body ached. He didn't have the energy to do anything except lay there, completely useless.

Groaning and finding it difficult to breathe, Cam turned over on his back and stared at the ceiling, which was slowly grower darker as the light outside became dimmer.

'I hate my life,' he muttered, almost unconsciously. 'I hate my life, I hate myself, I hate this town, I hate these people...'

'Why so narcissistic?'

The sudden voice made Cam jump, and he stared incredulously at its source. Laney was standing in the doorway to his rooms, her hands placed pompously on her hips.

'Hey!' Cam said angrily. 'Just because your dad owns this place doesn't give you the right to just walk into any room you want!'

'I knocked, you know,' Laney said, strolling into his room. 'But you obviously weren't paying attention.'

She knocked? When? Why hadn't he heard her?

'What do you want?' Cam asked irritably, lying back down on his bed.

'God, you're just like Lillian,' Laney complained, pouting. 'All she did when I went to visit her was lie down on the ground and whine and yell and whine and whine and whine...'

Cam froze. Laney had gone to see Lillian? And... she wasn't happy?

'Hmph,' Cam said, trying to act casual. 'Really?'

'Oh, don't act like that,' Laney said, bouncing on the bed at his feet. 'I know you too well, Cam.'

Cam let out a large, heaving sigh and sat up to glare at Laney.

'She's as big a mess as you,' Laney said softly and almost knowingly. 'I think you two really need to talk...'

'You do, do you?' Cam asked. 'Well, I don't. If Lillian had just spent more time with me this wouldn't have happened...'

'Really, Cam?' Laney questioned, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at him. 'Is this whole argument really _entirely_ your fault?'

Cam looked at her for a moment. Then two. Then three. Then four.

_She... She has a point._ He thought to himself. _Maybe I was a bit too hard on Lilly... She does have to run a farm by herself. I probably should have offered her help instead._

Without saying anything to Laney, Cam got up off the bed and strode from the room.

The blonde smiled triumphantly to herself. 'That's what I thought,' she said, getting up and leaving the room as well.

|o|

'Lillian!'

Cam rushed onto Lillian's farm, looking around for her. He ran over to her house and threw open the door; it was empty. He then checked her barn and chicken coop, but they were empty as well. The only things in the pasture were Lillian's animals.

'Lillian! Where are you?'

'Cam?'

Cam spun around and saw Lillian staring incredulously at him, a basket full of seeds perched on the crook of her arm.

'Lillian!' he cried, racing forward to greet her.

'Cam, what are you doing here?' she asked, folding her arms.

'I came to apologize,' Cam said softly, reaching out and touching a strand of her hair.

The farmer continued to stare at him, not saying anything.

'I'm sorry, Lillian,' he said after a waiting to see if she would speak. 'I feel really terrible about what I said. I... I shouldn't have said it.'

Lillian watched him. The seconds ticked by; to Cam they felt like minutes.

Then, all of a sudden, Lillian was throwing herself on top of Cam, hugging him tightly.

'I forgive you...' she whispered, kissing his cheek. 'And I'm sorry, as well... I love you.'"

|o|

An old, withered woman smiled as she closed the small journal she had been reading from. Her once honey-blonde hair was now gray and wispy, but her bright green eyes still laughed and smiled as though she were forty years younger.

"That was a weally good stowy, Grandmamma," said a little boy sitting in front of the elderly woman. He had the same cheerful green eyes as his great-grandmother, and was clutching a small teddy bear.

"Yeah, it was!" chirped the girl beside the boy. She seemed to be at least three years older than the boy, and looked like a carbon-copy of the woman sitting in a chair in the corner.

The woman had long, wavy golden hair and blue eyes.

"Thanks again for entertaining the kids, Nana," she said, getting up and kissing the old woman.

"Oh, you're very welcome, sweetheart," the old woman said, patting the younger's cheek. "Now you go on and take these two home; it's near supper time!"

|o|

The sun was setting low, hiding behind the mountains and turning everything around her orange and red and pink. The old woman hobbled slowly through town, smiling at the quaint little houses that had been there as long as she could remember.

Finally, she stopped in front of a small gate. Pushing it open, she stepped into a cemetery full of graves and headstones. She found the two she was looking for easily; they were some of the largest in there. They rested side by side, just like the people beneath them.

The first read "_Lillian Daisy Redmont, b. Summer 5__th__ 1802, d. Winter 20__th__, 1890_". The second said "_Cameron Oliver Redmont, b. Fall 19__th__, 1801, d. Fall 30__th__, 1899_".

"Oh, Laney, it's past time you join those two," the old woman said, blinking away tears. "Then all three of us could lie in a big pasture up there, together."

**YAYYYY! Happy Birthday, again, Diego. :3 :D**


End file.
